The Surprise and Delight of Music

The coffee house chain Starbucks used to have a set of idiosyncratic guiding principles which they felt set them apart from competitors. A bestselling book - The Starbucks Experience: Five Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary – extolled the virtues of these 'people-driven philosophies.' These included ideas like ‘everything matters’ and ‘leave your mark’, but the one that resonated most with me was something they called ‘surprise and delight’.

'Surprise and delight' is a marketing strategy that aims to attract and nurture customers and increase customer loyalty and engagement by providing unexpected rewards.  

I saw one example of this from the original source, as it were, in a Starbucks in Manhattan. It was a cold and wet February day and we had time to kill – we’d checked out of our hotel but it was too early to head back to the airport so we gratefully huddled in a corner of the café with our luggage and our two rather grumpy teenage children. I ordered coffee and paninis and was surprised – and, yes, I suppose, delighted – when the barista told me they had a selection of new cakes and pastries and asked if we’d like some free samples. She also presented us with complimentary cake-forks to keep as souvenirs. Word must have got around quickly as a steady stream of homeless people began to arrive, thankful for the generous offerings of free cake. It was heartening to see that the staff made the homeless customers just as welcome as the swanky businessmen who, with mobile phones and laptops, used the cafe as a remote office, answering emails, writing reports, even holding meetings with clients – all for the price of a cup of coffee. More than the free souvenir cake-forks, the staff’s attitude towards the less fortunate members of society surprised and delighted me.

Before you begin to suspect me of working for Starbucks, I should say, of course, that other coffee shops are available, absolutely. In fact, I prefer the coffee made by some of their competitors. But this isn’t really about coffee shops. Much as I like coffee and cake, my point is about the things in life that surprise and delight us and, for me, nothing does this more than music – shapeshifting, time-travelling music. Let me explain...

As a teenager I discovered the music of Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan. I had a budget-priced album of his which included a haunting track called ‘Donna, Donna’. When I started playing guitar myself this was one of the first songs I learnt. It's originally a Yiddish folk song about a calf being led to slaughter – an unlikely choice for Donovan to release as a single in 1965, (though Joan Baez had also released a version five years earlier.) I probably haven't heard the song for thirty years or more but, on a recent trip to Edinburgh, I happened upon a great little pub called The Captain’s Bar. Musicians were sitting outside at tables, taking turns to play and, though I had no instrument with me, I was welcomed and invited to join them. Various songs and tunes were performed and then one of them surprised and delighted me by singing ‘Donna, Donna’. I was instantly transported back to the thirteen-year-old me, getting to grips with that tricky A minor chord.

Cut to 1981. I'm living in Saint-Brieuc, Brittany, and browsing in a record shop. The sales assistant puts on an album and the music is – well, yes, surprising and delightful. I ask what the record is and it turns out it's the latest release by Breton folk-rock band Tri Yann, An heol a zo glaz. One track in particular, ‘Si mort a mors’, is so striking I immediately buy the album. I later learn the song is based on a poem written on the death of Duchess Anne of Brittany in 1514. I assume the tune is a traditional Breton one. More of this later.

Seventeen years after discovering the music of Tri Yann I made a nostalgic return trip to Brittany, now with wife and children in tow. We arrived in the pretty town of Dol-de-Bretagne on market day, just as the traders were setting up. One of them sold records and was playing a song which wafted across the square towards us. It was a heart-stopping moment, the music a fusion of Breton folk and hip-hop beats, the verses a rap in French and the chorus a stirring, vaguely familiar refrain. You guessed it – it surprised and delighted us so that when, later that week, we heard it playing as background music in a supermarket, I just had to ask someone what the record was so I could buy it. I accosted a teenager who helpfully told me it was a band called Manau. Heading for the CD section I discovered the song that was following us around was ‘La Tribu de Dana’ and had just topped the French charts. The irresistible and vaguely familiar chorus was a sampling of Breton harpist Alan Stivell’s 1970s folk-rock hit ‘Tri Martolod’.

One final example: I was recently listening to Mark Radcliffe's BBC Radio 2 Folk Show when his guests were Northern Irish trio, TRÚ. They selected a track by Skara Brae called ‘An Cailín Rua’. I instantly recognised the tune as ‘Si mort a mors’. A revelation. So, it seems, it's not a Breton song about Duchess Anne after all but, as was explained on the show, a love song about a red-haired girl, from the Donegal area! Well, okay, it’s both, since the tune is used to accompany two quite different lyrics.

Of course, it’s quite possible that Tri Yann borrowed the Donegal tune from Skara Brae, just as Donovan might have borrowed ‘Donna, Donna’ from Joan Baez, and Manau borrowed a chorus from Alan Stivell. But it all goes to show – never mind coffee and cakes; it’s music, with its unique ability to transform itself and transport us back and forth in time, that’s most likely to surprise and delight us.